Article November 18, 1916 Issue

From Our Exchanges

with contributions from A. E. Whitman, W. Fuller Gooch

[The Congregationalist and Christian World]

The Pilgrim fathers were builders of a new civilization. They did not come here to propagate Congregationalism. They had minds large enough to grasp the conception of a real kingdom of God on earth. Their labors, their hopes, their prayers are keyed to the idea of brotherhood, embodying itself in institutions, laws, and customs, and of permeating the very atmosphere in which children should grow to manhood and womanhood.

We of today are face to face with the same duty and the same opportunity. The industrial structure founded by the Pilgrims on justice and righteousness threatens to fall before the assaults of force on both sides the social gulf that emphasizes personal advantage rather than the common welfare. The structure of world civilization itself seems at times on the verge of collapsing. Into its foundations has never been put enough moral granite to sustain the vast material growth and expansion. The Christianity of Jesus Christ, mediated through the witness-bearing and practices of Christians, must be brought to bear not only upon the preservation of all that is best in the civilization of the past, but upon the making of a new civilization in fuller accord with the mind of Christ.

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